Thursday, January 6, 2011

Aspartate transaminase

I may have to leave the country because of my liver.  I have applied for the New Zealand Working Holiday permit twice now.  The first time I applied was Sept 4, about 5 weeks before I arrived in Auckland.  For one reason or another it was withdrawn in mid November.  I was camping in the woods and had no e-mail contact with the outside world and could not correspond with the immigration officers at the time.   I applied for the visa again on December 1st.  This time because I was already in the country I had to pay NZ$140 for the application, plus have a comprehensive medical exam, which cost NZ$250.  As part of the exam I had a blood chem test, which revealed that I had elevated ALT and AST scores.  this means that my liver had been damaged and I need to possible have another evaluation.  The immigration officer told me that because of the holiday season it may take 4-5 more weeks to process.  My last day on my tourist visa ends Jan 14th.  So I have the choice to overstay my visa or fly to Australia.  I would like to stay in NZ, the country is a great place and it is in the middle of summer now.  Australia is super hot now.  Ok so the choice is simple, be killed be the Aussie heat or let my liver kill me in New Zealand. 

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